Dr Mark Toshner

There is a myth in football that you are always most susceptible to letting in a goal after you have just scored one. It’s probably not true but the idea is attractive. At the peak of our achievement we are vulnerable to complacency. Is a similar thing happening with the vaccine programme? The current prevailing narrative is that the declining rates of vaccination are the fault of the under 30s. Government scientists accept that the country is 'close to maximum take-up', with many young people still hesitant about vaccination, the Times reported this week. But is that right? There is probably some truth to the less-than-urgent demand amongst this lower-risk group. But focusing on uptake among young people alone obscures a more obvious issue.

With just under 500,000 patients admitted to hospitals in Britain since the start of the pandemic, we need to talk about 'long Covid'. Why? Because while the vaccine rollout is undoubtedly saving many lives, there is going to be a forbidding secondary impact from this virus on the nation’s health, the scale of which is only just becoming apparent.  What does 'long Covid' conjure in your mind? For many, it has become synonymous with fatigue and brain fog, symptoms which are fairly common. But what is less well known is that the impact of Covid-19 on patients can extend far beyond these symptoms alone.

Germany is the latest country to suspend the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine over concerns about possible side effects. The Netherlands and Ireland have taken similar steps. So too has Denmark, Norway, Bulgaria and Iceland, while Italy and Austria have halted the use of certain batches of the drug as a precautionary measure.  Britain has done many things wrong in its handling of the pandemic, but it has done one thing well: the rollout of the jab. It's the one place where we have useful lessons to teach the world in Covid-19. Europe, in particular, does not appear to be listening. Vaccine programmes as ambitious as the one needed now require joined-up international co-ordination and action.

I'm a card carrying, Europe-loving, wishy-washy centre-left liberal. It therefore pains me to point this out: the EU in general, Ursula von der Leyen specifically, and some of the prominent European leaders such as Emmanuel Macron are getting policy and messaging on vaccines badly wrong. They need to urgently ditch the peacock displays of tribal politics. The French president, in particular, who leads one of the most vaccine sceptical western nations, should not have so publicly questioned the efficacy of what has clearly turned out to be a vaccine that is working in the fight against Covid-19. The consequences of their words could well be long-lasting.

Over the last two months our fight against Covid-19 appears to have changed dramatically. The emergence of novel variants in the UK, South Africa and Brazil has generated plenty of headlines and concern. We shouldn't panic. But one thing is clear: if we don't act now, we could come to regret it. In the UK, for obvious reason we have been most focused on the B.1.1.7 variant. The evidence seems pretty clear that it is more transmissible and potentially more severe. Part of the reason we have such extensive data on virus mutations in the UK is the quite astonishing efforts that have gone into sequencing the viral genomes.

Lockdown is brutal. I don’t want it, you don’t want it, nobody ‘wants’ it. We are, however, at an intensely difficult moment in our fight against Covid-19. The latest wave of the virus is out of control, with the new variant significantly contributing to the huge hike in coronavirus cases. Our healthcare system is reaching the point of no return. This means that there is little choice than for us to face up to the reality that we are in the midst of a crisis – and that Boris Johnson had little choice but to tell us all to 'stay at home' once again. 1,041 deaths from Covid-19 were recorded yesterday, and the high number of those dying from this disease looks set to continue.